


Galentine's Day

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [23]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 21:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14090472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Clarke, Lexa,  and the rest of the women in their extended family gather to celebrate Galentine's Day.  One of them has an announcement to make.





	Galentine's Day

"But why are we going today?" Madi asked, leaning forward so that she was straining against her seatbelt in an effort to see their faces from the back seat. "Valentine's Day is _tomorrow_."

"Sit back," Lexa said absently, easing the car to a stop at a light and glancing back at Madi. "We're not celebrating Valentine's Day. We're celebrating Galentine's Day."

Clarke caught the look of consternation on Madi's face in the rearview mirror. "Galentine's Day is on February 13, and it's a day for ladies to celebrate ladies. It started on a TV show, but it became its own thing," she explained. 

"Why?"

"Because Valentine's Day is about celebrating romantic love," Lexa said, "and for most people, that means a boy and a girl." 

Madi smirked. "Not in our family!" 

Clarke grinned back at her. "No, although it's not as skewed as your might think. When I figured it out one time, it's actually even. There's me and Mama, Anya and Raven, and Echo and Luna, but then there's Octavia and Lincoln, Murphy and Emori, and Gina and Bellamy."

"Our family is not representative of the general population that way, though," Lexa pointed out. The light turned green and she pressed the gas gently. "Anyway, people get so focused and fixated on romantic love that they forget that the love that we have for our friends is just as important, and especially women supporting other women."

"Also, it's an excuse to eat lots of chocolate and cake and have fun, so why _wouldn't_ we celebrate?" Clarke asked. They pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant that someone – she didn't actually remember who had made the arrangements – had picked, and headed inside, Madi clutching her hand as she skipped (and nearly tripped) along beside her.

"Adria!" Madi said, spotting her new BFF as soon as they were inside and letting go of Clarke to go wrap her in a hug that Adria didn't look like she was quite prepared for. 

Clarke looked at Lexa and laughed. "You'd think she hadn't seen her in weeks, not days."

"Not even days," Lexa said. "She saw her yesterday at school." Because when Luna and Echo had realized that Adria would be sticking around for more than a few days, they'd enrolled her in the same school as Madi, and the school had been willing to accommodate them and put the girls in the same class so that the painfully shy little girl whose life had been turned completely upside down at New Years would at least have one person she knew in her class. It was still early days, but it seemed like Madi's (sometimes slightly overzealous) good nature was helping to start to break her out of her shell, at least a little.

It didn't take long for everyone to get there, and they were seated at the biggest table the restaurant had. It did serve food, but specialized in desserts, which was why they'd chosen it. They ordered appetizers, and wine to go with them, and conversation flowed in several directions at once as they caught up. After seeing each other almost too much during the holidays, they'd all gone into recovery mode, and although a few of them had gathered for the Super Bowl, it had been a few weeks since they'd all been in one place.

When the food and wine arrived, there was some quick negotiation about designated drivers (Lexa elected herself for their family) before the bottle was passed around. Clarke took a sip, and even though she was pretty sure that people who talked about oaky notes and chocolatey overtones were full of shit, it seemed like it was pretty decent to her. 

"To Galentine's Day," Gina said, raising her glass, and they joined her in a toast. When the appetizers were gone, they decided to skip directly to dessert, and small gifts and cards were exchanged while they waited for its arrival. Madi and Adria had spent hours the weekend before making homemade cards for everyone, and they were practically glowing with pride at everyone's ooh-ing and aah-ing over them. 

Emori cleared her throat. "There's actually something else I want to announce," she said, when there was a lull in the conversation. "And just... I wouldn't be telling you if it wasn't a good thing, so..." She sat up a little straighter, looking more nervous than anything. "I'm pregnant."

Clarke was honestly grateful that she'd prefaced the announcement by saying that it was a good thing, because she wouldn't honestly have known how to react otherwise. Despite the presence of Tris, Madi, and Adria at the table (Persy was at home with the guys; three men and a toddler seemed about even odds) she wasn't sure that any of them actually felt like they were ready to be parents. But then was anyone ever _really_ ready? Of all of them, though, Murphy and Emori had seemed like the least likely to go the family route. 

"You're having a _baby_?" Veelu asked, leaning so far out of her chair and into Echo's lap to try to get to Emori (who was on Echo's other side) that Echo (who hadn't looked surprised by the announcement) finally just lifted her up and put her in her lap. "I want to see!"

"You can't see it yet," Emori said. "It's still too little."

Veelu frowned. "Can I feel it?"

"Nope. _I_ can't even feel it yet," Emori said. "It's only the size of a raspberry right now." 

Veelu's frown deepened. "How did it get _in_ there?" she asked.

There was some sputtering around the table as people who had been eating or drinking nearly choked. They should have seen the question coming, and yet...

"That's a very good question to ask your mother," Emori said, and then mouthed, 'Sorry!' at Abby for having thrown her under the bus. But really, now as not the time or place to—

"Mommy, how did the baby get in there?" Veelu asked.

"We can talk about that later," Abby said. 

Veelu was clearly not impressed by that answer but was thankfully distracted from pursuing it by the arrival of dessert. She looked at the lemon tart that was set in front of Echo, and then reached out and plucked the raspberry that garnished the top from it and held it up to Emori's belly, a look of absolute consternation at the idea that a baby could be that small creasing her face. 

Lexa stood up, quickly snapping a picture to capture the moment. 

Emori looked at her and grinned. "I guess that's the very first baby picture," she said. 

"It's a thing people do, right?" Lexa said. "Take pictures of themselves while they're pregnant to document it?" 

"You probably know as much about it as I do," Emori said. "I managed to convince myself it was stress and a stomach bug and the holidays that had me missing my period and feeling like shh—feeling sick for weeks. Gina figured it out before I did. She texted me and was like, 'Is there any chance you might be pregnant?' And in my head I'm going, 'No, absolutely not, there's no way that—oh _eff_. Except the uncensored version." 

Everyone laughed, including Lexa. Clarke reached over and took her hand, squeezing it, and Lexa squeezed back. Whatever Lexa's own feelings were about babies, if one of their friends was happy, she would be happy for them. 

"And then Echo got the panicked text at what, seven in the morning? the day after the Super Bowl, after she'd been working all night, when I took the test and it came up positive. I'm still sorry about that." Emori grimaced, but Echo just shrugged. 

"That's what friends are for," she said. "Can I have my raspberry back now, li'l monster?" 

"Oh yeah," Veelu said, and popped it into Echo's mouth, then dug into her own cake, still perched in Echo's lap. 

"I freaked out for a while," Emori said. "I had this whole long list of reasons why I absolutely could not do this, which Echo just knocked out one after another, including reminding me that yes, it might be harder to do some things with only one arm, but that we have an actual genius engineer friend who can help with adaptive technology, so..."

"Oh yeah," Raven said. "Bring it." She leaned forward. "Seriously. What are you worried about? What do you need?"

"Well, you need two hands to change a diaper," Emori said. "One to hold their legs out of the way and one to do everything else."

"Hmm," Raven said, taking a bite of chocolate cake and chewing slowly while she thought.

"What about like what they use on dog grooming tables?" Tris asked, her voice quiet, like she wasn't sure she was invited to participate in the conversation. "They have a thing that goes over the table with a loop that goes around the dog's neck to hold them in place. You could do a padded loop for the baby's ankles, and their legs would stay up..."

Raven looked at Tris, grinning. "Good thinking!" she said. "I could totally make something like that. She turned her attention back to Emori. "What else you got?"

"The biggest one is how do I actually pick the baby up? There are slings and whatever to carry the baby in, but how do I get them off of a surface and into the sling with only one arm?" 

"Huh," Raven said, her forehead furrowing as she thought. 

Again, it was Tris who spoke up. "You remember when we watched that show that Anya calls birth control TV?" 

"Call the Midwife," Anya supplied. "Don't watch it, Emori."

"Noted," Emori said. 

"Go on," Raven said to Tris. 

"They had a thing that they could hook onto blankets and lift them up to weigh the babies. You wouldn't need it to weigh the baby, but what about something that you can hook blankets to – or like a special waterproof blanket that you can put as the bottom layer in the crib or changing table or wherever you need it, and then you can lift the baby up enough with it that you can slide the sling under and then you can pick them up." Tris bit her lip like she was waiting to be shot down, to be told that her idea would never work.

Raven just stared at her for a second, then, "That's – you're _brilliant_! I'll have to figure out the details, but that sounds not only possible, but not even that complicated. Tris, you're a genius!"

Tris' gaze immediately dropped, and she pushed away from the table, mumbling something about the bathroom, and took off. 

Clarke looked after her, wondering what that was about, but then her attention was drawn to Madi, who was giggling. "What?" she asked, reaching across Lexa to poke her. "What's so funny?"

"It's a _razzbaby_!" Madi said gleefully. 

Lexa facepalmed, and everyone laughed. "So punny, our daughter," she said to Clarke, shaking her head. 

"She gets that from your side of the family," Clarke teased. "You were telling dad jokes long before you were a parent." She'd been telling dad jokes back when she'd been sure she never wanted kids, but Clarke didn't say that, because she didn't want to risk upsetting Lexa, or possibly Madi. She was sure that someday – and possibly that day might be sooner rather than later now – it would come up that Lexa hadn't seen children as being part of the future that she envisioned for herself, until she'd met Madi and decided that maybe she didn't want kids in general, but she wanted this one kid in particular. They would just have to make it very clear that having Madi as their daughter had always, _always_ been something they _both_ wanted, whatever their feelings might have been before meeting her.

"My jokes are hilarious," Lexa said, deadpan. "Right, Bug?"

Madi's eyes shifted from one side to the other, and then she said, "I plead the fifth," and everyone cracked up.

"You taught her that, didn't you?" Lexa accused Anya. 

"I plead the fifth," Anya said, then winked. 

Lexa shook her head. "I feel so betrayed. All these years I thought you were all laughing _with_ me..." 

"No, Mama, don't be sad!" Madi said, her expression changing like a switch had been flipped at Lexa's downcast look. "I was only joking!"

"I know," Lexa said, pulling her into a hug. "So was I." She kissed Madi's head. "Love you, Madi-bug."

"Love you too," Madi said, and Clarke's heart melted like it did every time, because god, Lexa had come a long way from the person she'd been when they'd first met, who'd stumbled over any words that might have conveyed what she was feeling, or betrayed that she had feelings at all. Now that four-letter-word slipped from her lips as easily as any other. 

Clarke got up so she could wrap her arms around them both, whispering her own 'I love you's until Ontari complained that between them and dessert she was pretty sure she had just developed diabetes. Clarke went back to her seat, resisting the urge to flip Ontari off – not because she was actually upset, it just seemed like the appropriate reaction – because she had to set a good example for the children. 

When Tris hadn't returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, Anya got up to go check on her. They returned to the table a few minutes later, Tris with red-rimmed eyes and Anya looking slightly bemused. When Raven looked at her, she just shook her head slightly. Whatever it was, they would talk about it later. 

Finally every last crumb of dessert was gone (Veelu had to be stopped from licking her plate) and the bill was paid. They started to gather up their things when Emori stopped. "One more thing," she said. "Friday, April 13th. Don't make any plans for that evening – except for getting babysitters."

"What's April 13th?" Octavia asked. 

"The wedding," Emori said. "Or the party. We're just doing city hall for the ceremony, but—"

"Wait, what?" Raven said. "Murphy proposed? _Our_ Murphy?"

Emori laughed. "Yes, _our_ Murphy. _My_ John. He decided he wanted people to be able to call him something other than my baby-daddy, so..." She shrugged. "I said, 'So you're just doing this because you knocked me up?' He said, 'Yes, absolutely.' I said, 'Okay, good.' But then he asked, 'So... is that a yes?' I told him I was waiting for the ring. So he went downstairs and got a ring of pineapple and put a cherry for the diamond or whatever and brought it to me, and well, how could I say no to _that_?"

Echo fought back a smile. "Is that more of a proposal fail than accidentally proposing, or less?"

"Does it matter?" Emori asked. "We both said yes."

"Fair," Echo said. "Have any of us ever managed a non-fail proposal?"

"I did!" Lexa said. 

"I'm still waiting," Octavia said, making a face but then laughing.

They all headed out into the parking lot for the rather lengthy process of hugging and saying goodbye and congratulations. When Anya came over to Lexa, Clarke heard her ask, "Is Tris okay?"

"She will be," Anya said. "Yet another thing they don't cover in the non-existent parenting handbook: what to do when your child has a meltdown because someone said something nice to them, and their biological parents have done so much damage to their self-esteem that they don't believe it." 

"That sucks," Lexa said.

"Yup," Anya agreed. 

Clarke went to retrieve Madi, who was still attached to Adria. She finally managed to peel her away, and slowly everyone dispersed to their various cars. 

Clarke leaned over Madi, checking to make sure her seatbelt was fastened, even though she knew that their daughter was extremely diligent about making sure she was buckled in properly. She never complained about them double checking and given the fact that she'd come into their lives because of a car accident, Clarke thought she might have even taken some comfort from it.

"I can't believe I'm going to have another cousin!" she said, dancing in her seat. "I mean, kind of a cousin."

"I think cousin is a good word for it," Clarke said. "Lots of kids have people they call aunt and uncle who aren't actually related, and even if you don't call our friends that, it's pretty much the same thing, so their kids can be your cousins if you want them to be."

"Cousin Razzbaby," Madi said, grinning. 

Clarke looked over at Lexa. "Think we should warn Emori that that's going to stick?" she asked.

"Nah," Lexa said. "She'll figure it out."


End file.
